


his brother's hands.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:57:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1213522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>tumblr ficlet</p>
            </blockquote>





	his brother's hands.

Sam sees it, then.  

His brother is kneeling in front of Cas, who is slumped over on the couch.  He is settling Cas’s head back on the cushions and pushing Cas’s legs over on the seat.  This isn’t new.  Cas falls asleep on the couch almost every night. He falls asleep to  _Saturday Night Live_ and the local news, he falls asleep halfway through gardening programs and Lifetime movies and  _Antique Roadshow_.   

But tonight Sam finds he can’t seem to take his eyes from from his brother’s hands.  His brother’s hands, carefully cradling the back of Cas’s head, his brother’s hands spreading a blanket over Cas’s legs.   His brother’s hands, touching Cas without any gentleness but instead with brisk familiarity as he smooths the blanket down over Cas’s knees.

“Pretty soon, it’s just going to be you and Cas,” he says.  He doesn’t know why he says it.  He’s just thinking out loud.  

Dean freezes with one hand still resting on Cas’s knee.  He doesn’t look up.  “ _What_ ,” he says.  Sam looks at him in alarm.  Dean’s face has gone very still.  He looks like he’s been hit by an anvil, a piano, an asteroid; something impossible and absurd and out of this world. Something he should have seen coming.  Something that hurts.  “ _What_ ,” he says again.  “Sam?”  

For a second, Sam feels himself gearing up for something. A Talk.  A fight.  Something big.  The kind of thing they’d gone through three months ago, when Dean had come home driving a motorcycle and Cas hanging on to his shoulders behind him, and then handed Sam the Impala’s keys and just said, “Little brother, she’s all yours.”  The kind of thing they’d gone through last Wednesday when Sam had driven the Impala three days with no particular direction in mind and had wound up texting Dean a photo of the world’s largest ball of twine and Dean had sent a message back just said  _get me a t-shirt._   The kind of thing they’d gone through yesterday morning when he’d walked through the front door for the first time in a week and Dean had looked looked at him with something new and strange in his eyes and said wonderingly, “I sort of forgot to miss you.”

But then Dean says, sort of chokingly,  “What do you mean, just me and Cas?”

“You know,” he says, but it’s obvious that Dean doesn’t.  “I’m heading out in a few weeks.  I got a new place.  I’ve got the car.  And when I leave for good, it’s just going to be you and Cas still here.”

Some life appears to return to Dean.  He stares down at the blanket and thumps his fist on Cas’s leg absently.  ”Me and Cas,” he says.  ”Me and Cas?” he says.  He’s frowning a little.

"I never wanted to leave you alone," Sam says.  "But somewhere along the way, I guess I started thinking that one day I’d leave for good, but that you’d still be with Cas.  You and him, driving all over the country.  You and him, hunting ghosts. If that’s what you wanted to do.  Just.  You and Cas.”

Dean looks staggered.  “You mean,” he says, “I could do that.  With Cas?”

"Yeah," Sam tells him.  "I always thought you would.”

He’s still looking at Dean’s hands, because his brother’s hands never lie, even though there are truths those hands have not yet uncovered.  His brother’s hands catch him even when he’s yelling  _You fucked up big this time._ His brother’s hands mend broken things even when he thinks his touch destroys. His brother’s hands are resting on Cas’s leg, his thumb rubbing small circles on Cas’s knee.  His brother’s hands are shaking.

"Do you—" Dean is asking, very quietly.  "Do you think he’d—?"

"He will," Sam says, "He does,"  and his brother’s head snaps up to look up at him, and Sam sees it, then, because it’s not just in his hands.  It’s all over his face.   

"Okay," Dean says.  His hands say that he’s okay.  They are settling in place on the sides of Cas’s face, fingers brushing over his hair.  "Okay."


End file.
